This and That

I am a social and chronological srapbook. Basically, most of my scrapbooking gets done at crops or other craft gathering. Thus far, I've also been a straight chronological scrapbooker. I start with January and go through December. I get all the holidays, birthdays, camping trips, vacations, etc. but not so much of the little things like where we like to shop, silly habits and quirks of family members and the like. I also don't do a book for each of my kids (Shock! What a bad mom!!) I don't do any other sort of mini album either. Well, once I did a mini book of a vacation my husband and I took together but I swear-nothing else. It's always confused my simple mind to do anything different. Now that my kids (and me too) are getting older, I'm thinking of changing my ways a little, but more on that another day. For now here is my basic process. This is what I will probably never change.

I scrapbook the traditional way with printed pictures, paper and embellishments bought at a craft store, adhesives and trimmers. I love it. It's like putting a puzzle together. As soon as I pull out an envelop of pictures, I immediately separate them into smaller stacks like the first day of school, swimming lessons, etc. Next I take the top stack (remember-I'm obsessive about going in chronological order) and lay all the pictures out to narrow down my choices.

As soon as my pictures have been picked, I hit the books. I have three books I consistently use: Becky Higgins Sketch Book (the first one), Easier-than-Ever scrapbooking (Creating Keepsakes), and Imagine (Close to My Heart). I also have some templates I bought at a Making Memories warehouse sale that I love.

I always have to sketch out my layout, even if the book is there. I'm a guidelines kind of gal. I like the look of a page, but don't want to be influenced to much be someone else's designs and tastes. I've also found after using these things for a few years, there are a few layouts I use over and over like the one below. I finally had the courage to tweak my standard 6 (4 x 6) pictures to fit 4 vertical ones and one horizontal. And thanks to my "imagine" book, I've also been more courageous in learning to use patterned paper in different ways.

Which is my next step after sketching. I usually find my patterned paper and build my cardstock choices around that.

Then the fun part-making all that work come to life. I'm not huge on embellishments, but sometimes I'll issue myself a challenge like using my stash of stickers, flowers, etc or trying something new like chipboard or buttons. It keeps it fun and interesting.

(Sorry about this one-blogger kept turning the orientation on this photo. I'll keep working on it.)

(Same with this one. Sorry again.)

You'll notice something missing from both layouts. Journalling. Never been too good at getting it done. I'm working on it. :)